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Monday

The nonsense prevalent in society about the "new role of the father" (spawned by the Father's Rights movement) makes me stop to question my own actions as a mother.

Am I doing the best thing for my children? Are my actions somehow indicative of my own selfishness or inability to be the best caretaker?

But more so,

Am I crazy?

I turn to Animal Planet and discover my answer.

When a female gives birth to her young while in captivity, she shields that young from the hands of the human keepers. She also wards off fellow captive animals. When the young is pried from the mother, she reacts defensively, wildly, with great rage, instilling fear in the human keepers and providing an ominous warning to the other animals.

No one has any right to take her young away from her, even those that she previously trusted with her own care.

In the wild, the mother protects her young from curious animals of the same species, and other predators. She allows her young to grow independent, but is keenly aware of his/her presence, even from a distance. She is no stranger to attacking, or killing, in defense of her young. Sometimes, this leads to her own demise.

And yet the mother is unstoppable. Unable to be tamed or easily coerced with regard to her offspring. The maternal instincts override any existing urges. Nature doesn't question her, humankind doesn't label her anything other than a mother.

She is not a crazy mother, or a post traumatic stress disorder afflicted mother. She is not an unfriendly mother or an alienating mother. She is a mother, and this is nature.

Am I crazy? HELL NO!

I know this with certainty because mother nature has shown it to me, herself.

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new." ~Rajneesh